Aggregate is a creative strategy group that works with nonprofit organizations and philanthropic foundations to bring people and resources together to create social and policy change. We are looking for a strategic, entrepreneurial and collaborative Creative Director to join our team.

Our new Creative Director will develop and lead our creative team to produce creative products for our national and international nonprofit and foundation clients.

Are you our ideal candidate?

• You create beautiful work. Consistently.
• You come from a design background and, while you likely come from a digital background, you know how to either work in other media or communicate effectively — and get good work — from others who do.
• You are a strategic thinker. In other words, your work is not “only” beautiful, but it achieves the objective.
• Your work reflects a clear understanding of user/audience needs.
• You’re an effective collaborator who can communicate and compel others to embrace your ideas to non-creatives — including clients.
• You are excited about trying new ideas and coming up with unexpected solutions.
• You are a leader; you help others make “good” work to become great.
• You take great pride in your work — justifiably so — but you don’t let ego get in the way.
• The thought of building a creative practice (nearly) from scratch doesn’t scare you; it’s exactly the kind of challenge you are looking for right now.
• You care about social and policy change and are enthusiastic about applying your talents to help achieve it.

What will you do?

• Partner with strategists to develop creative solutions to current and prospective client’s challenges.
• Design and execute creative materials as needed for client and new business work.
• Identify needs for freelance help and collaborate with and supervise freelancers and vendors.
• Collaborate successfully with other team members to ensure on-time delivery of all creative materials.
• Provide constructive feedback to team.
• Assist in assessing scope and estimating fees for projects.
• Develop staffing plan in partnership with President and manage hiring process.

Additional Qualifications

• At least ten years of experience in applied design experience, with demonstrated growth over that period, including management experience (tenure will be considered in the context of other qualifications)

How to Apply

Please send a link to your portfolio to Melissa AT whatisaggregate DOT com. All applicants will receive a response. Potential candidates will be screened through a phone interview. Candidates should anticipate sharing professional references.

Location and Compensation

Aggregate is based in Seattle, Washington. Compensation will be commensurate with experience and market standards.

Amy’s passion lies in telling important stories. Her career began in journalism and evolved to helping nonprofit organizations better tell their own stories in today’s ever-changing media landscape.

Amy came to Aggregate from Banyan Branch, a digital agency based in Seattle. As an account supervisor, she led the development and execution of social media strategies for the agency’s nonprofit clients, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Next Generation Learning Challenges and the National Civil Rights Museum. Amy previously served as a staff writer and web producer for The Charlotte Observer and as a home page editor for MSN.com.

Amy has a Master of Communication in Digital Media degree from the University of Washington and a Bachelor of Journalism degree from the University of Missouri. Amy is currently an alumni fellow in the Master of Communication in Digital Media program, where she teaches workshops and mentors students while continuing her graduate studies in digital strategy and storytelling.

Follow Amy on Twitter @amyrainey

Now in its tenth year, True/False is a reflection of David and Paul’s love for great documentaries, powerful storytelling, talented filmmakers and Columbia, Missouri, the festival’s home town and the happiest place on earth every year at the end of February/beginning of March.

Because of our love of storytelling, our belief in its ability to change the world (for the better) and our love for and belief in David, Aggregate is excited to announce that we are sponsoring the festival in 2013 and hopefully in years to come.

If you can get to Missouri February 28-March 3, join us at the festival. You won’t be disappointed.

(And check back for highlights from the fest.)

To achieve this last item, we could be outspoken about the issues we care about — in our conversations, via the content we share online — and we could work with organizations that share those values. We could also give to organizations that were working to uphold those values.

We moved into our first office on September 1, celebrated our first anniversary on October 1 and today we are announcing our first annual charitable contributions. We reached out to friends, vendors, family and clients for ideas and they sent quite a few fabulous options. Hopefully next year we’ll be able to increase the number and the size of the donations we make, but this is what we are doing this year.

Boys and Girls Club of King County: We wanted one of our donations to go to a group in our home town of Seattle. Haley suggested the Boys and Girls Club because, as she said, they enabled her to afford to ensure her beautiful daughter had after school care when Haley was enrolled in a full time Master’s program. Giving women the chance to further their education — and to inspire their daughters to do the same — is core to our hearts and we love having the opportunity to allow Haley to say thank you and to join her in doing so. We are giving the Boys and Girls Club $500 (actually, we’re letting Haley’s daughter do the honors) and encourage you to consider making a donation as well.

Southern Center for Human Rights: We are proud of the work we are currently doing with the Council of State Governments Justice Center and of the other people in our world who work to address the injustices of the criminal justice system. They need our help. The Southern Center for Human Rights provides legal representation to people facing the death penalty, challenges human rights violations in prisons and jails, seeks to improve legal representation for poor people accused of crimes, and advocates for criminal justice system reforms on behalf of those affected by the system in the Southern United States. We are giving the Southern Center for Human Rights $1,000 and hope you will consider making a donation as well.

Ali Forney Center: On December 17, Spencer Cox died at the age of 44. Spencer was a committed AIDS activist whose passion enabled him to contribute to saving the lives of millions of people worldwide, a fact we should all know and never forget. His family suggested three charities to which donations could be made in Spencer’s name and we selected the Ali Forney Center. The Center, in New York City, provides housing and other services to homeless LGBT youth and recently needed to invest significant resources to rebuild its drop-in center, which was destroyed by Hurricane Sandy. We are giving $1,000 to the Ali Forney Center — in Spencer’s name — and hope you will consider making a donation in his name as well.

Spencer was featured in David France’s How to Survive a Plague and upon his death, David posted the amazing video of Spencer at the top of the page, in which Spencer reminds all of us what matters most: being kind, and being generous. Thank you, Spencer.

Hint: It has nothing to do with “getting along.”

“Too often, we enter into a partnership or collaboration like we’re on a first date. We mask our faults with a coat of makeup or a new outfit, pretend to have interests and capabilities we don’t have, and assign super-human qualities to the person sitting across the table in the hopes that they might just be “the one.”